


Hired Hand

by Kittimage13



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28165836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittimage13/pseuds/Kittimage13
Summary: The story of one my D&D characters, Lunaire.





	1. Chapter 1

Near a certain large city in a valley between mountains, in the outskirts around it, there was a large manor. At the front of the manor, which belonged to the high-elf Mirriven family, there was a wrought iron gate, the only entrance into the main courtyard before the manor. By the side of this gate, there was always a guard, most often an amicable earth genasi man who preferred wearing dapper jackets over his thin frame.

But today, the guard was different. A young woman, though one would only know by her voice, what with a large cloak covering most of her, down to the ankles, and the hood drawn far up over her face. Throughout the day, she spoke with many people, mainly to ask them their business of being at the manor, and then checking over the list of people the master of the house was expecting.

Things went smoothly for the young woman until the ninth person of the day approached her, a copper dragonborn man in scraped and dented half-plate, with a large blue cape draped over his wide shoulders. He flashed her a toothy smile and waved to her as he walked up. "Hello, the name's -" He cut off for a second, unconvincingly faking a cough. "I'm Hawk Who Roosts On Branches. I scheduled an appointment with the lord Mirriven for today."

The woman responded with a tone that implied a raised eyebrow and a suspicious look, "Yeah, it says on this list here that a Mr. Hawk is supposed to be here today. If you don't mind me asking, why do you have tabaxi name?"  
"My adoptive parents were tabaxi. Do you mind if I go in, urgent business and all." He laughed nervously, taking a slow step to the gate.

Stepping in front of him, the guard held up a hand. "Sorry for being suspicious of you, but I need to take my job seriously. I'm going to require some kind of proof of, well, you being who you say you are. A legal document from a guild or the magistrate should do."

With a sigh, the man caved. "Alright, I'll be honest. I'm not really Hawk. Well, I kind of am in a way, but not really. The name's really Grejhan Lemmil. The reason I tried to pretend to be Hawk is because we're magically stuck together." He waved a hand quickly before he could be cut off. "So, we were coming here for Sir Mirriven's help in the process of... unsticking us."

"Ugh. Fine, I'll let you in, but I want you to remove any weapons you have, and let me search you. Got it? Oh, I'm Lunaire, I don't think I said." She took a moment to remove her cloak to conduct the search more easily, showing her appearance. Long pink hair was tied up in a ponytail, the color almost matching her pale skin. Her eyes were a bright green, contrasting with the rest of her palette. She wore a padded leather tunic and metal greaves, though the most eye-catching feature of her outfit was the faintly glowing greatsword strapped to her back.

Grejhan muttered to himself while reaching for the bag of holding in his pocket, "Guess a guard has gotta defend themselves somehow." He pulled out the bag, and subsequently pulled out quite a few weapons from it. A set of gauntlet-like claws, a mace with a ball of molten rock for its head, a flail with some creature's eyes, swiveling to glare at her...

"Just leave 'em in the bag at that point." Lunaire said with a sigh. Grejhan nodded and put the weapons he'd removed back into the bag, and handed it over to her. She took the bag from him and dropped it onto her cloak, then approached Grejhan to search him. After a quick pat-down and rustling his armor, Lunaire backed away and picked up her cloak to properly put the dragonborn's bag of holding in one of its pockets. She slung the cloak over her shoulder and fished a key out of a pouch on her belt, opening the gate to the estate.

Lunaire ushered Grejhan through the gate, then locked the gate behind both of them before proceeding through the courtyard and up to a large double door. She pushed open one of the heavy doors, leaning against it to see the visiting dragonborn inside, and walked into the manor behind him, the door shutting by it's own weight. Lunaire got the attention of a guard in the hall, directing him to watch the gate.

After a few minutes of walking and climbing up stairs, the duo made it up to lord Mirriven's study, where the elf was found delicately weaving enchantments around a pair of rings. With a grin on his face, he turned to the human and dragonborn that had just entered. "Ah, Grejhan today, is it? I suppose it doesn't quite matter either way. Come here, I've nearly finished your request." He waved Grejhan over to him, and turned back to the rings. "It's only a temporary deal until I can actually unbind you two, but these rings should work. These were originally designed to draw people back from other planes, but, with a few modifications, they should work to pull Hawk out of your stasis pocket."

Lunaire stared on in confusion, still standing in the doorway. "Ah, sir, should I return to my post at the gate?" Mirriven perked his head up and looked over to her. "Forgive me, I was so caught up that I'd forgotten you were still here. Assuming you followed protocol and had another guard take the gate, you should stay here. It's possible that something may go awry, and your combat skills would be a great help." Lunaire nodded and walked into the study, shutting the door behind herself and leaning on the wall next to it.

"And just in case, here." Lunaire fished Grejhan's bag of holding out of her cloak, and tossed it over to him. "If something bad does end up happening, you should have your weapons." He responded with a thumbs up, slipping the bag into a pocket. Mirriven turned to Grejhan, holding the two rings in his hand. "Alright, put one on each hand. While they're worn, you'll stay separate. If one of you takes your ring off, you go into stasis, in the same way as usual. Of course, if one of you is already in stasis, the one of you that's out will be fine taking his ring off."

Grejhan removed his gauntlets, letting them drop to the floor with a clang. He took the rings and slid one on his right hand, and paused for a second. The other two in the room stared on in rapt attention. He slowly put the other ring on his left hand, and when it sat snugly around his finger, a large cloud of pink mist suddenly appeared. When the mist cleared, a thin blonde tabaxi was standing next to Grejhan, wearing flowing orange clothes. He stretched his arms and cracked his neck, yawning quietly. "Pleasure to see you again, lord Mirriven." He turned to Lunaire, stunned into silence at the other end of the room. "I'm the actual Hawk. Nice to meet you." He gave her a wave and a friendly grin.


	2. Chapter 2

"So, at that point, we'd accidentally revealed ourselves to the guys, and then-" Hawk waved a hand in front of Grejhan's face lazily, cutting him off. "Stop bothering her with your tales of adventuring." The dragonborn responded with a frown. "But it's funny! The part where we almost got blown up, remember?" Lunaire let out a sigh and took a sip of her drink. "Not to be rude, but I am getting tired of listening to you." Grejhan's frown deepened, and Hawk gave him a comforting pat on the back.

"Anyways, why did you two drag me along to this tavern? I hope it isn't that just wanted someone else to drink with." The girl said, giving the pair a questioning look. Hawk nodded and steepled his fingers together on the table. "Well, we wanted to ask you for help with something. We got hired to protect this caravan, but it turns out that the whole thing is a lot longer than we thought, so we figured we should pick up a third person to help guard it."

"So, Grejhan suggested we ask you, since, as he said, you 'look like you'll do whatever you can for extra money'. Did you mean that as an insult?" The tabaxi turned around to his partner, directing the last phrase at him. Grejhan shook his head, embarrassed. "No, I didn't. I just meant that a young woman her age probably needs gold for a lot of things, like perhaps getting her own lodgings, upkeep of her equipment, things like that."

Raising a hand, Lunaire interrupted them. "Anyway, I would gladly help you with this job. Where is the caravan headed through that it needs protection, though?" Grejhan gave her a strange look before sighing out an answer. "It would be through an area in the Underdark. See, there's been a drawn out conflict between a hobgoblin legion and a lizardfolk tribe, and the only ways that aren't through heavy forests are currently a battleground. But there's a cavernous section of the Underdark that is big enough for the caravan to travel through, right under the battlefield."

Lunaire didn't respond right away, staring at her drink, a far-away look on her face. "Hey... You alright there, pal?" Hawk gave her a concerned pat on the arm. She looked up, seeming a bit surprised. "Huh? Um, yeah, traveling through the Underdark. I can do that. I'm actually pretty familiar with it, although maybe not this specific area."

Grejhan nodded approvingly. "Since we're going to work together, you should know about our sort of combat capabilities. I'm a sea storm barbarian, so that means I have a connection to the ocean that gets channeled into lightning abilities when I'm raging. Plus, I'm pretty good at swinging around weapons in both hands, even stuff you wouldn't expect me to be able to, like longswords and axes."

"I'll go next. I'm a monk of the way of the astral self, so, I can manifest portions of my power in the astral realm into our realm, which translates to physical and mental augmentation, like strong sight, and extra arms for faster attacks. I also learned a bit about taking down magic users, so you can rely on me for that." Hawk says proudly, puffing out his chest a little.

Lunaire picked up her greatsword from where it stood against the wall, her cloak wrapped around it as a makeshift sheath. "I'd be a mix between a ranger and a fighter, specializing in ambush attacks. I mean, if I knock down an enemy before they can attack me, that's pretty good. I also know a few spells, though I generally rely on this for attacking." She patted her sword gently. "I picked it up a while ago, but that's a long and weird story. I'm also good against enemies that like inflicting mental effects, because I can resist them pretty well."

With a grin, Grejhan asked her, "Does your sword have a name? Like, my weapons all have names, my mace is called the Magma Ball, this flail is the Beholder's Gaze, and these claws are-" The dragonborn was cut off as Hawk pushed the weapons back into their bag of holding. "Stop bothering her with your tangents, however-" The tabaxi cut himself off like he was going to say something wrong. Grejhan leaned down slightly to make eye contact with his friend. "However, what?" Hawk blushed up, surprising Lunaire, who thought it wouldn't be visible through his fur. "It's n-nothing, okay?"

"It does have a name. It's called Moonlight." She uttered the name in an almost reverent tone, stroking the blade thoughtfully. Lunaire looked up to the pair across from her with a knowing smile. "And you two aren't nearly as subtle as you think you are. I was half expecting one of you to grab the other's arm and lean in all romantically." Grejhan joined in with the blushing. (Though his cheeks turned green instead of red, interestingly.) "I, well, we aren't really dating. It's like... dear, can you explain it?" He turned to Hawk, who mouthed out the word 'dear' with a smile before responding. "Umm, we just didn't want to make things public, I'm sure you know how it is with the more... judgemental types."

Lunaire grinned at them. "Yeah I get that, but now I'm all curious. Have you guys-" Grejhan interrupted her. "Hey, so, about Moonlight, your sword. What's it do? Like, I'm assuming the glowing isn't all." She nodded and slid the cloak down to show the blue blade, emitting a faint glow over the intricate and flowing engravings on the tang. "It has some extra power over a regular greatsword, obviously. And, this is just speculation, but I can sometimes feel like it gets stronger against certain creatures while I'm fighting them. It's usually against Underdark beasts, where my slashes cut deeper, my arm feels lighter, the light focuses brighter, like its coating the blade instead of how it usually hovers around it." She left out the most crucial ability of the blade, deciding it would just get her a silent judgement and a weird look at best.

"Well, that's pretty cool. I'm sure it'll be useful on this job, then." Hawk responded. "We're expected to meet up with the caravan before they set off tomorrow morning, so you'd better be ready by then, alright?" He smiled at Lunaire, then stood up, Grejhan following suit. "We should get going, we have to wake up early to pack our things out of the inn and to get supplies." The pair left the booth, leaving Lunaire to sit and finish her dinner. She left shortly after, going to her small house in the city for the night.


End file.
